Sins of the Father
by Hoodoo
Summary: Sosa didn't want to, but accidents happen. She couldn't choose an abortion so, she took a leave of absence and had the baby and gave it away. And then Face finds out that he's got a kid somewhere in the system...    Post movie, no slash.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: no recognizable characters are mine. Others may or may not reside solely in my head.

Notes: this was prompted on the Live Journal A-Team Meme: _The condom broke, the diaphragm popped, the batch of depo-provera got recalled, whatever. She didn't want to, but it happened. She couldn't choose an abortion so, she took a leave of absence and had the baby and gave it away. And then Face finds out that he's got a kid somewhere in the system..._

* * *

><p>They were hard to find.<p>

That was the point though, wasn't it? Being on the run, staying one or preferably five steps ahead of the MPs?

So it was odd that after so many years, after hearing she was on the case and then off the case, on and off again and again that Charissa Sosa was able to track them down.

To be truthful: she did not track them down.

She made them contact her.

With a grim expression that quelled the bickering B.A. and Murdock were engaged in regarding the proper amount of warfarin to season stew with (B.A.: none; Murdock: just enough to give it flavor but not enough to cause platelet problems so they'd bleed out), Hannibal snapped the newspaper he'd been reading and handed it wordlessly to Face.

The conman took it gingerly. He didn't like reading these semi-pseudo newspapers, the "City Papers" that were in so many metropolitan areas. Hannibal read them, looking for job leads. Face was more technologically advanced. He watched Craigslist and other, more obscure web catalogues.

Hannibal had been kind enough to circle, in red ink, the classified ad.

Face read it. He read it again. The third time through he mouthed the words, as if doing so would make them magically make sense.

Murdock scrambled behind him to read it. Typically he'd snatch the paper—a paper, a book, a remote control, whatever—out of Face's hands, but the severe look making deep lines in Hannibal's face hadn't softened, so he contented himself with looking.

Since Face was still silently processing the words, Murdock read them aloud for B.A.'s benefit.

"Urgent! Templeton Peck! Concerns of the past are in the past, save one. Contact me! Urgent! C. Sosa."

Murdock typically had a fair impersonation of her; but out of the blue like that the words were Texan flavored.

"What in the wild wild world of sports is goin' on here, Faceman?" the pilot asked.

Face didn't rise to the bait of a Mel Brooks' reference. "I don't know," he answered quietly, his own brow furrowed.

"Could be nothin'," B.A. said.

No one answered him.

"Could be a trap," B.A. said.

Everyone else was still quiet.

"Could be another Templeton Peck?" B.A. said.

Even Hannibal rolled his eyes at that.

"What do you think, Lieutenant?"

Face was finally able to drag his gaze back up to the older man, but it was obvious the ad still held him mesmerized.

"I have no clue," he replied, in a variation of his response to Murdock. "I have no clue."


	2. Chapter 2

No amount of research turned up answers, either. They discovered the cryptic message within other "City Papers". Philadelphia. Baltimore. Pittsburgh. Nashville. Whenever they were in a city large enough to have one, Face grabbed a free copy and scanned it. The ad was the same in each of them.

It made no sense. There was no way she would know they'd even _read_ one of those papers, so her "Urgent!" couldn't have been too urgent. That also meant it was less likely to be a trap of some kind, because again, what kind of plans could be made on a random, fingers-crossed kind of shot in the dark?

The four of them tried to puzzle it out. Even with their resources, they couldn't figure out how long Sosa had been placing the ads, or from where she started. She'd managed to blanket them across the country.

"An enigma the likes of the Voynich Manuscript!" Murdock exclaimed. "Or the Toynbee Tiles!"

Face found he had less tolerance for his best friend's proclamations then before the ads were noticed.

Finally, a good ten months after the first was found, Face sat down with Hannibal and told him he wanted to contact his ex-girlfriend.

Hannibal aimed a lungful of smoke away from the man across the table from him.

Face waited with growing impatience as he received no reply.

He finally demanded, "Well?"

"I'm surprised it took you this long to decide," Hannibal answered carefully. "I'm surprised you hadn't already gone behind my back."

Face was surprised at those disclosures. With a nod and Hannibal on board, they turned their search to finding Sosa. They find her, the mystery is solved.

No more wondering and odd sleepless nights.


	3. Chapter 3

The team used its usual channels to hunt down Captain Charissa Sosa, but the usual channels took longer than normal, and it wasn't till another three months had passed before they were able to pin her movements enough to determine when it would be best for Face to approach her.

It was an unspoken agreement that Face confront Sosa alone. Murdock made noises to the effect that he should have back up, that he have the support of his best—crazy—friend in case this was the most elaborate, ridiculous ruse ever created in the history of mankind. Like Sosa was channeling Alan Abel.

Face refused to let him. He needed to talk to Sosa by himself. She insisted _he_ contact her, not anyone else.

And deep down, he knew if he went alone and this was a trap, only he'd be caught. Self-preservation was a trait Face honed quite well, but for something as foolish as this, he'd not risk his team.

B.A. drove the rental van to the condo complex they'd discovered she kept a place. Face steeled himself, nodded, and got out. He caught the big man's eyes; B.A. nodded back. Hannibal didn't say anything either. When Murdock tried, Face slammed the door shut before he could hear anything and left.

He heard the vehicle drive away, but didn't watch it go. He switched his cell phone to vibrate only without looking at it and made his way through the courtyard to her place.

* * *

><p>Her place. This wasn't a place he'd ever seen before, but it was hers. Similar to the place she'd had off-base way back when. When they were dating. When things got a little more heavy, a little more serious, than he'd ever planned. More than she ever planned, evidently, because she ran like a rabbit when he breathed the mention of commitment.<p>

Then they met up again, years later. They'd bantered—that's what exes do, right?—they danced around each other—that was even more stereotypical—he'd handcuffed her to a photo booth in Germany—that was a little iffy, on the 'exes' front—she agreed to help bring down Lynch.

She'd been assigned to hunt them. Then her superiors took her off the case. Then she was back on, they discovered through Hannibal's sympathetic military contacts. She almost caught him that time, Face recalled. That time a few years ago? He'd been at a club, a rare night off, and she'd been there. Completely unexpected, completely by chance.

She didn't have back up. She did still have a pair of hand cuffs, which didn't get used.

He'd swept back into her life for one night, an old fire rekindled. Her ember for him hadn't died completely either . . .

. . . she tried to stop him, tried to tell him if he turned himself up, if the team turned themselves in, she could help. She knew more people now, could better circumnavigate the system—

Face finished pulling his pants on and left. They heard she'd been taken off the task force charged with finding them again.

So he'd gotten away from her twice now, and here he was, walking up to her front door, intent on ringing the bell.

He didn't know if he had three times luck, but he would soon find out.

He saw a shape darken the peephole in the door, and then Charissa threw it open.


	4. Chapter 4

Hannibal had a backup plan. It wasn't a good one. It wasn't solid. It consisted mainly of leaving after a set time, and hoping Face would make the preset rendezvous point.

Against Murdock's outrage, he gave the order to leave.

Face had his time. He said forty-five minutes, an hour tops, and he'd be out her door and back with them.

Four hours had passed.

The three men—one brooding and dangerously close to a breakdown brought on by the thought that his best friend was now in shackles—sat in uncomfortable silence in a no-name hotel.

Waiting.

Waiting for what, none of them could really say.

Murdock had given up his arguments and threats that they should go back, they should go and see what happened. He'd looked mutinous. Hannibal wisely sat between the pilot and the door, because sometimes physicality was more effective than reasoning.

B.A. had ignored most of their dispute. He positioned himself by the window to look down over the street entrance.

"Hey, shut up," he ordered, even though Murdock was most decidedly not talking. "Face's comin' back."

Murdock was up and at the window like he'd been spring loaded.

"What's wrong with him?"

B.A. looked down on the man handing money though the open window of a taxi.

"What are you talkin' about, fool? Nothin' wrong with him, besides being three hours late!"

"No . . . there's something wrong . . ."

The brief second of jubilation that shot through Murdock was gone. Something was wrong, something was wrong, something was—

* * *

><p>Murdock was right.<p>

Faceman rejoined them in their innocuous, anonymous room. What Murdock could see from four stories up the other two couldn't help but be slapped with now.

The conman looked shattered and smaller. His complexion was blotchy; ashen between the spots where capillaries hadn't broken from obvious sobbing.

At the sight of him, Murdock pulled up short in shock.

"What happened?" he demanded. The pilot checked himself and turned the hug he'd intended into a shoulder grab. "Facey, what the hell?"

Face could barely lift his head. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips cracked. He looked lost and wretched. The horror on Murdock's face slowly seeped into Hannibal and B.A.'s. Face tried several times before he was finally able to force words out of the dry wasteland of his insides.

"Charissa . . . she . . . she told m-me . . ."

The other three waited patiently, with a mounting sense of dread.

Face took a shaky breath. "She told me . . . she had a b-b-baby. M-my baby. Years ago."

He broke into fresh, wracking sobs.

In the stunned silence, Murdock was barely able to bring move his arms to comfort Face with a hug.


	5. Chapter 5

The sorrow gave way to rage: rage that snapped and snarled and seemed unending.

"What?" Murdock had croaked out, still stunned by the news. "But . . . how?"

Face had shoved him away then, away from the embrace meant to be supportive.

"_How?"_ he spit. There were still tear tracks on his face; the tears in his eyes magnified the blue but didn't make them beautiful. They were the brilliant bright of anger, Lucifer's eyes when his Father cast him out of heaven.

Murdock ducked away from the force of them.

"_How?_ Because I made a mistake, because I couldn't keep my dick in my pants, because accidents happen, because—because . . . _what do you mean, how?"_

Murdock, crazy by most standards and braver than people gave credit for, stepped up beside the man now trembling with the force of his fury and hugged him again.

Hannibal tried to get information too. He waited until his Lieutenant was able to sit instead of pace. He waited until the room was out of tissue and his Lieutenant was using the hotel's washcloths as snot rags before asking the questions that swirled inside his head.

Neither B.A. nor Murdock had left. Murdock refused; he fretted by worrying all ten of his fingernails down to bleeding as he watched Face move endlessly around the room. B.A. swatted at him to stop, once or twice, but gave up when it was obvious Crazy needed something to focus on besides the maelstrom.

B.A. himself was stoic and taciturn as he often was in situations that caused anguish for the other three. His presence was solid and grounding.

When Face was finally exhausted enough to sit—not relax, but sit—Hannibal cleared his throat and said with as little accusatory tone in his voice as possible,

"So Charissa Sosa had a baby, and says it's yours. How do you know?"

"Why in the fuck would she lie?" Face retorted. "Why in the name of all that's holy would she find me to tell me something like that, if it wasn't true?"

"I don't know," Hannibal answered honestly.

"Because it is true! It is true! I slept with her three, four years ago—don't look shocked, Murdock, you knew about it—and she said she hadn't been with anybody else. So . . ."

Face let his sentence die.

Hannibal tried a different route. "Then what does she want? She had a baby, she says it's yours—why wait so long to tell you? What does she want from you?"

Face shook his head.

"Money? Child support? I can't imagine she wants you to 'do the right thing' and marry her—why would she give everything she's ever worked for? There has to be an angle, Face—"

"She said she felt guilty," the conman muttered.

Hannibal stopped and leaned forward. "Excuse me?"

"She said she felt guilty. She felt guilty that I never knew. That I never had the opportunity . . ." His voice, which had gotten slightly louder, faded again. "She'd been placing those ads for years. It was the only way she could think to try and get in touch without someone finding out. It was a surprise to her that I showed up at her door."

"She felt guilty about not telling you she was pregnant and having a kid," Hannibal reiterated. Now he couldn't contain the bite of anger in his voice.

Face nodded despondently. "Yes."

The older man sighed. "Then what does she want now?" he asked again, more loudly.

Face shook his head, with the same misery. "N-nothing. Nothing. She just wanted me to know."

Usually Hannibal could keep opinions to himself. This one he couldn't. "That's a pretty shitty, catty thing to do."

Face flinched. Murdock glanced over at the ex-Colonel to cow him—didn't they all think that? Was it necessary to say it out loud?—and moved to Face's side. He slipped a bloody-fingered arm over his friend's shoulder.

"Did she let you meet . . ." he started to ask quietly, then was stuck. ". . . him? Her?"

Face didn't lean into the comfort offered, and continued looking at his hands lying limp in his lap.

". . . a boy. It was a boy."

Murdock squeezed him.

The room became very still.

"Sh-she said his name was Devon. Devon," he repeated, as if to solidify it, to make it real. His voice was barely above a whisper. "My son's name is Devon."

"So you met him?"

The pervading sadness that Face succumbed to disappeared in a blink.

"No!" he shouted. This time Murdock weathered the storm and didn't let him go. "No I didn't get to meet him! Charissa had my baby, had my son—_and she fucking gave him away!"_


	6. Chapter 6

For the second time that awful afternoon, dazed silence filled the room.

Murdock almost, almost repeated Face's last bit of the sentence as a question, but had the wherewithal to realize it would throw gunpowder on the flame.

"She can't have," B.A. intoned, in his deep-as-the-sea voice, his voice meant to soothe and be definitive at the same time. "She can't have given your baby away. Two parents need ta sign off on papers. Not just one."

Now Face focused on B.A., who took the brunt of the gaze with ease. Beneath his arm, Murdock felt the tensions warring in the man beside him: trembling and fragmenting all at once. Something was building; whether it was explosive rage or explosive grief he didn't know, he couldn't know which way that pendulum would swing until Faceman let it out—

"One can if she lied and said she didn't know who the father was, and didn't lie by saying she didn't know how to find him!"

—explosive rage, then.

But Face didn't stop at the final revelation.

"Oh god, oh god—she had my baby, she had my son—_oh god_—she-she gave h-him away! I never knew, I-I n-never had the cha-chance to-to meet him or say don't give him away or _anything—"_

—explosive grief smashed the rage with the force of a tsunami, and Face clutched at Murdock, clutched at anything that might hold him here, hold him solid. He sobbed and wailed, and B.A. came to over to help as well, enveloping both of them in huge arms, holding Face still from his impotent rocking.

Hannibal stood by them all, stroking Face's hair until, spent and weak as a kitten, Face could no longer voice anything else and went limp against all three of them.


	7. Chapter 7

They discussed it. It was difficult, of course: Face ran the gamut of heartache and fury multiple times a day, sometimes.

Face wanted to find his son. Face wanted to not believe any of it was true—what Hannibal said made sense. They team had a rule: No one was truly dead unless there was a body; it wasn't much to twist the same logic: No one had a child unless there was testing.

Face was torn.

Find him. Know him. Love him.

Stay away. Not believe. Never know.

Arguments could be made for both, and none of them could make a rational case for either. It could come down to practicality (Hannibal was the staunchest supporter of this, no surprise: "We're federal fugitives, Temp. What we have wouldn't be fair to a kid. You _know _that.") and emotion (B.A. was the proponent of this: "Kids need their daddy. Need to know he's no low-life, runnin' out on their mama. Need to know people love 'em.").

Murdock remained oddly quiet and reserved and didn't offer his opinion.

The pilot allowed his best friend to be however he needed to be. It was a fluid comfort: when Face was so enraged that he couldn't believe his ex-girlfriend would be so selfish, Murdock absorbed the anger. When Face was so unhappy that his son had been abandoned, had been left, Murdock consoled him with more insistence than was truly necessary.

He didn't ever, ever voice the idea he was comforting Face through the second soul-shattering rejection in his life.

Finally, though, the weight of not knowing was heavier than the rationality of leaving the past in the past.

Hannibal didn't fully agree, but let the chips fall as they may.

Face's decision opened up new cans of worms. How they would find him was easy for a team whose expertise fell in the realm of finding people and helping out those who had no other option. Charissa had said she pursued a closed adoption. A rarity, nowadays. She didn't know the birth parents' names or the state they resided.

B.A. made relatively short work of a system that was dominated by 'going paperless' and 'being green'.

What they would do when they did locate the boy was another problem entirely.

"What'll you do, Face?"

"What'll you say, Face?"

"What'll happen if you tell him—"

"What'll he think if he knows—"

Face pushed away the unending, unanswerable questioned plied to him.

"When we find him, find Devon, I'll know what to do," he answered again and again.

"There are probably statutes of limitations on punitive fathers," he was told.

"You think you can just walk into this kid's life and everything will be fine," he was told.

"He may not know he's even adopted," he was told.

"Devon should know he has a father!" Face shouted into the dark, after the relentless hounding followed him in his sleep. No one was in the room with him, and he curled over on himself, whispering with fevered insistence, "He should know he wasn't deserted, that there was someone else in his life!"

"He has someone else in his life," the same voice inside his head replied. "He has parents. Are you doing this for him, or is it just for you? Are you being as selfish as she was? Are you going to ruin his life? How can you even justify telling him you're his father—you don't know how to be a father, you don't know anything about having a family—"

"Hey Facey, you all right?"

Murdock's question stalled the internal berating, slowed the blows that made his heart feel like a punching bag.

When he didn't receive an answer, Murdock climbed onto the bed with him and pressed close. He didn't say anything about the wet he found on Face's cheeks, didn't remark on the rhythmic shakes that indicated the tiny sobs that shook him. He just lay behind him to let him know even if he felt gutted inside, he wasn't alone.


	8. Chapter 8

They—B.A. mostly, but they were a team—found him. Found the little boy Charissa Sosa couldn't have in her life, the little boy that Face hadn't been permitted to say he didn't want either.

He lived with his parents, an employment lawyer mother and a special-ed teacher father, in a mid-sized city. The street they lived on was steep. The houses were close together, and each had a tiny yard. The father walked the dog twice a day, every day. The mother drove a hybrid car.

"You gonna go ring the bell?" B.A. asked, after they'd sat on the place for a week.

"No . . ."

Face's drawn out response was made into a lie as the front door of the house opened and the little boy popped out onto the front porch. Face involuntarily reached for the handle to open his door, his body tensed to exit, but he lost his moment to act when mom and dad followed the boy out.

Mom held the dog by leash in one hand, while taking the boy's in her other. Dad locked the door behind them and they all headed to their car. Both the dog and the boy were whirling dervishes of excitement.

Once everybody was buckled and secured, the family drove off.

"Follow them," Face ordered.

B.A. glanced at Hannibal. The ex-Colonel gave a slight, resigned nod before the black man put the car into gear and eased from their parked position to follow the sedan.

Murdock chewed his thumbnail and acted like he wanted to say something, but held his tongue.

* * *

><p>They ended up at the park.<p>

It was a Saturday, a warmish day in fall that made people realize winter was nipping at its heels, and the children's playground was packed.

B.A. had to drive around several times to find a parking space. In the interim, they lost visual contact with the family.

The ignition of the car was turned off, and the four of them sat silently a moment.

"I don't like this," B.A. finally announced. "Four guys, sitting in a car outside a playground? Someone's gonna remember us."

Face ignored his concern. "It'll be fine."

"What are you going to do, Lieutenant?"

The same question was echoed in Murdock's eyes.

"I don't know. I want . . . I want to see him, to . . . talk to him . . ."

"This isn't the best place to do that."

Face ignored this statement as well.

"You don't even know for sure if he is your son," Hannibal reminded him gently.

For the third time, Face disregarded the concern. His head was filling with cotton; the noises outside were becoming muffled as his heart rate increased and grew louder and louder in his own ears. It was hard to breathe in here, with the walls closing in, and in a flurry of movement, Face was out of the car and slamming the door shut behind him.

Outside wasn't much better. Shrieks of joy from the kids on the playground pierced him, but he still felt logy and disconnected.

With feet made stumbly with adrenaline, he walked towards the sounds of the kids.

This was wrong, this was wrong, there was so much wrong about this, Hannibal was right, B.A. was right—someone was going to remember a single guy skulking around a kids' play area—what was he doing, how could he rationalize this—

A small boy darted passed him—was it Devon?—and Face started truly scanning the area.

Allowing the conman's grace of fitting in anywhere, anytime, take over him, he sat on a bench at the periphery of the area and watched. Catagorize and dismiss. Not many people brought their dogs to the playground. A brindle dog is easy to find. There! Jumping and tugging with its desire to play with the multitude of children, Face was easily able to locate the bench the father sat on, holding the dog back.

Mother wasn't with him, which meant she was somewhere on the jungle gym. That would make sense, most parents would be concerned about their five year old when so many older kids were making use of the facility too . . .

She was returning to the bench. No boy in tow. Face watched the couple exchange words and a kiss, and then dad took the dog away for its walk.

Still no boy. He was out there, playing, running, laughing, climbing . . .

Face would find him too.

It took a while. Even though he knew exactly what Devon was wearing, it was hard to pick out a red sweatshirt when every color under the rainbow adorned the kids ran with less purpose than ants around the area.

Eventually, though, he spied him.

The boy was a natural climber, his short legs belying the determination he had to make it to the top of the wooden structure. Now that he had him marked, Face could hear his screams of happiness as he went feet first down the twisty slide.

He repeated the climb and sliding board descent several times.

Then he grew distracted by the red and gold leaves blowing across the ground and went after them.

With single-minded determination, Devon now chased after the leaves, carefully collecting the brightly colored discards and holding their stems tightly in a chubby fist. His path took him around the other children, passed the swings—Face was almost on his feet as Devon naively ignored the danger of feet near his head, but God protects drunks and children—and along the edges of the play area, before the mulch gave way to grass.

He had a handful of leaves when his route brought him closer to Face.

The punch of adrenaline was back. Face's heart hammered in his chest, his mouth was suddenly parched, he felt his hands trembling. Inside was a war:

—you don't know he's your son!

—Charissa wouldn't lie, why would she lie—

—what's the point of this, Temp?

—heartache and pain—

—the kid has a family—

—kids need to know their daddy—

_—you don't know he's your son!_

The little boy stooped down for a particularly calico leaf of red and gold, and Face said,

"Hi."


	9. Chapter 9

The little boy looked up.

All the doubts laid down by reason and prudence that he didn't know for sure, that maybe Charissa was lying or wrong or vindictive and messing with his mind, were crushed.

The boy looked up at him with the same sapphire blue that looked back in the mirror every day.

Face choked back a sob. He swallowed and kept his hands in his pockets, tightly fisted because now it was true, now it was real, and now he didn't know what to do, just as predicted.

The boy watched him solemnly.

"Got some leaves there?"

Not the greatest opening gambit, but who would have thought it would be so hard for one of the world's slickest con artists to formulate coherent words when his brain was confronted with someone outside himself but still part of him?

The boy was clearly torn between not talking to strangers and someone who showed an interest in his leaves.

"I like the red ones," Face went on mindlessly. "They match your sweatshirt."

The boy glanced at his fist and at his zipped up coat, then nodded with a smile.

That smile simultaneously filled Face with joy and broke his heart.

"You've got a good collection there," he continued, and from across the playground, he heard a woman calling,

"Devon! Devon!"

He wanted to say something more, he wanted to say something poignant and meaningful. He couldn't.

"Devon!"

The woman—Devon's mother—still called, sounding more frantic.

Face glanced away from the boy, expecting to now be blinded, like looking into an eclipse. He saw the search the woman was conducting, looking for the boy who had been climbing and sliding and was now nowhere to be found on the playground.

"I . . ." Face started. "I think someone's looking for you. Is that your mom?"

The little boy turned. "Yeah. That's her," he confirmed.

A lump formed in his throat, threatening to close off his airway and forcing tears close to the surface of his eyes.

"You'd . . . you'd better go back."

"Yeah—"

But before the boy could go, the woman spotted him and darted to them.

"Devon!" she scolded, grabbing his outstretched hand. "Don't run off like that!"

"I didn't run off, mama," he contradicted. "I was getting leaves."

"I couldn't see you! You scared me!"

"Sorry, mama," the boy replied contritely. He offered a smile and the handful of leaves to her. "I got these for you!"

Face almost smiled at the not-so-clumsy attempt of distraction.

"He didn't go anywhere, ma'am," he said. "He stayed on the playground the whole time."

The woman glanced over as if it was the first she'd noticed him.

"Thanks," she said, and it didn't sound sarcastic. He noted she also didn't seem to think it odd he was sitting here by himself at a playground. "You have kids here?"

"A little boy. Somewhere . . ." Face managed to unclench a hand and extract it from a pocket to wave towards the jungle gym. " . . . out there."

"They can be so hard to keep track of sometimes," the woman confided, as if that was a parenting secret.

He nodded. It was true, he'd found.

"Well, have a good day," she said, and walked Devon back towards their side of the playground, exclaiming over the bright red maple leaves the boy had found.

Devon looked back at Face one time and the image of those brilliant blue eyes and dazzling smile seared itself into Face's memory; it etched itself into his soul.

The bench shifted a little as Murdock sat down beside him.

"Well?" his friend asked quietly.

Face looked at him and tears fell. He didn't wipe them away.

"Everything's . . . good," he answered honestly.

He'd lost his sight of the mother and child; maybe they'd returned to their car. It didn't matter.

"Everything's good. He's here, he has a mom and a dad . . . I'm glad. It was for the best. It's good. Good for him."

Murdock nodded, and never questioned whether Face knew it was his boy or not. Face believed it, made his peace with it, and that was good enough.

_fin._


End file.
